Summary

Throughout the semester we have been working on certain themes and projects that have ultimately led up to our final project 3. These themes consist of madness, status, power, education, and curiosity. It is with these themes that we had to create Project 1-read aloud a chapter, and Project 2: distant reading.

In Project 1 we were required to read aloud a chapter that forced us to take roles as the characters within the book we were reading at that time, Northanger Abbey. With this project each class member was assigned a chapter of “Northanger Abbey” and was told to record ourselves reading aloud and portray each character with different voices. We reviewed Edward Cox’s The Arts of Writing, Reading and Speaking for ideas and pointers on public reading. Throughout Project 1 the theme of status is connected with the idea of education for both men and women. Without education one has a harder time gaining status unless you are born within a certain group. For women the idea of Education lay with conversation, by reading and studying certain subjects they can create a conversation with men to make themselves more appealing. Overall Project 1 was a very useful assignment to help us understand the differences between reading aloud to an audience and silent reading.

In project 2, we focused on How to Not Read a Novel. Each individual class member was assigned a nineteenth century novel to not read and instead partake in a process known as ‘distant reading’. We discussed the differences in distant reading from close reading, which most of our class was accustomed to, and learned to include technology in our assignment. We used Gutenberg.org to download the novel and employed Voyant and Wordle to visualalize the book. In using the words that appeared most prominently in our word clouds and visual creations, we discovered themes and plots without actually ever turning a page. We then used these insights to write a 1,000 essay about what we learned from this project that included the visual word clouds and such that we had created.

By deleting and stop words (and, or, the, etc.) the class was able to visualize the frequency of words. The bigger the word the more prominent it is said within the story. Looking at the graphs and plots on the Voyant word page a student can define a certain word within the story and see the sentence in which it is in. Giving the student a better idea of the themes and plots of their 19th century novel. For example, one of the novel’s was based off of “The Moonstone” by (find author’s name) and by distant reading this book i found that the most common theme was curiosity. What I deciphered from my word cloud was that the moonstone was possibly a diamond and a family was trying to keep it safe from greedy people. When i looked at the summary online about the book i found that i was really close in my analyzation of the word cloud. In this form of distant reading it is possible to understand the overall plot of the story but personally i feel that close reading is more beneficial to understanding the characters, themes and symbols of a story.

Education as a Recurring Theme

Education was a big part of Frankenstein if the beginning of the book, and towards the end when it came to his monster. If Frankenstein never went to school and never got the education he did or even went against what professors told him about the books he was interested in I don’t think he would have ever gotten to where he did and he wouldn’t have made the monster he made. Sherlock Holmes seemed to have a lot of education, but it was an education that was kind of crazy and not explained on why or how he got that education to be able to think that way.

Curiosity as a Recurring Theme

Curiosity is a theme that is seen throughout the novels at the end of the semester, mostly within the book of Sherlock Holmes. Within the story the main character of Watson was fascinated by Sherlock, which is his reasoning for actually deciding to live with him in the first place. By placing himself within the company of an also curious adult it produces a widely known novel about mystery, action, and surprise to most individuals. Sherlock’s curiosity is not with Watson as a person but with the idea of inductive reasoning to try and seek out criminals. Astounded with the scenario of death and mystery his adventures add to Watson’s curiosity about Sherlock and the creative methods of tracking down murderers and criminals.

Another novel the theme of curiosity is steady throughout is The Beetle. This one theme is responsible for driving the novel’s audience to complete the book. Many strange and curious events happen in the books pages, particularly the transformation of ‘the Arab’ into an oversized beetle. One character, Sydney Artherton, was prominently portrayed as a curious and innovate character because he was a type of inventor. This characteristic of curiosity created an incentive for him to begin the adventure into discovering the secrets and history of the beetle.

Power as a Recurring Theme

Power is evident in several of the novels featuring female protagonists, most notably Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, but also in male protagonist stories, including Marsh’sThe Beetle and Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Though presented in different forms and for different motives, “power” in the novels parallels the fears of power in British society. In Lady Audley’s Secret, the definition of power is shaped by female struggles for status gained by “power play” marriages. With the changing cityscape and increasing urbanization of Britain, modernization lends to anonymity and provides Lady Audley the power to change her identity thereby allowing her to gain power and status through another marriage. In Northanger Abbey readers learn that novels have the power of being imitated (in this book, a dangerous concept). As exemplified by Catherine and the power of her imagination, to reconcile reality and fiction is a difficult task when consumed with “realistic” (or dramatic) reading. Books and their connection in the education of women parallel the fears of power struggles in Britain. The similarities between the dangers of power (education and imagination) in Northanger Abbey can be directly compared to Britain’s simultaneous fear of the educated woman. In any case, both Catherine and Lady Audley are influenced and consumed by power in order to make comments on British society..

In The Beetle, power is a literal objective. The Beetle itself possess and controls Robert Holt in order to seek revenge on Paul Lessingham. Marjorie, the love interest in the story, also seeks power by breaking free from her father’s control (literally disobeying his wishes), a wild concept in its time. Sherlock Holmes is obsessed with the power of knowledge, which he controls in his concept “The Science of Deduction”. He works diligently to find all facts, which enable him the power to solve the unsolvable. Although not nearly as dramatic as Lady Audley’s Secret orNorthanger Abbey, A Study in Scarlet does comment on society’s need to analyze all factors, further (attention to detail paralleling increasing appreciation for science). Regardless of gender, protagonists in 19th century British novels are power-seeking feigns, whether they know it or not.

Madness as a Recurring Theme

Madness is a theme that happens in quite a few of the novels that we read this semester. Northanger Abbey deals with madness only indirectly, none of the actual characters in the book are mad, or perceived as mad. However, Catherine is reading throughout the novel are Gothic novels, a type that usually deals with the passions, including madness. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley looks into the topic of madness. Victor, as he is just beginning to conceive the idea that he can create life, gets a fever and chills and his obsession with his idea becomes so great that he questions his own sanity.

The book that deals most directly with the madness is Lady Audley’s Secret the secret that Lady Audley is hiding is the fact that she is mad. I found this use of madness as a cover all explanation for her actions a little disappointing.The defining factor for what comprised madness were never given and the examples of why Lady Audley was mad were vague at best. Consequently I looked up the working definitions of madness at the time the book was written. I went to the rare books library here on WSU campus and looked up madness, the medical term, in several medical handbooks, starting with one from 1678 up until 1870. There I found the term mad to be very ambiguously defined. Any mental instability, either temporary or permanent, or any great passion could be defined as madness. The probable causes listed were equally bizarre: extremes of heat or cold, greif, long periods of focused studies, hereditary disposition, pride, ambition, avarice, and intoxication were all included in the extensive list of probable causes. Up until around 1900 the word mad did not carry any connotation of anger, it was used solely to describe a person’s mental state. Johnston Dictionary in 1755 defined mad as “broken in the understanding”. With definitions like that I can see the appeal of using madness as a device in Literature. The very fact the definition of madness includes such a broad range of symptoms and causes makes it all the more terrifying. Anyone and everyone around you could be mad. Which is what must have madeLady Audley’s Secret such and engaging thriller in the 1860’s.

The last book that we read was The Beetle by Richard Marsh. This book deals heavily with the occult and with human psychology making it an interesting read. The mental state of mesmerism not madness is a primal theme of The Beetle.

Status as a Recurring Theme

The themes that took place around project 1 were “Money=Status”, Education, and curiosity. In class we had a discussion about Catherine with her either marrying for money or marrying for love, in the end it seemed to all come down to money and status. Status was a very important theme shown throughout the class and especially in our first couple novels but more on Northanger Abbey did it seem more important than anything other novel. For example, when Catherine is introduced to Mr. Tilney she, Catherine, was constantly reminded about status because Mr. Tilney was in the upper class and she fancied him so was thusly reminded of her position in society.